We need your help to stop the killing of pigs by Southern Illinois
University School of Medicine (SIU). Until this
month, SIU used the same human-based training methods employed across the
country by 85 percent of surveyed emergency medicine residency programs in the United
States.

Last week, PCRM filed a complaint
with the United States Department of Agriculture, explaining that SIU is
violating the federal Animal Welfare Act by using live pigs to teach emergency
medicine resident physicians. Please help this effort by calling and e-mailing
SIU School of Medicine dean Kevin Dorsey, M.D., Ph.D., today. The training sessions are scheduled to take place this
month.

In the emergency medicine residency program at SIU, residents
make an incision of the eyelid to drain previously injected fluid, then make an
incision between ribs to insert a tube into the chest cavity, then surgically
open the chest, and finally make an incision in the throat and insert a
breathing tube. The pigs are then killed. Nonanimal
training methods are widely used by residency programs across the country,
because nonanimal training is the best and most effective training available.

Here is Dr. Dorsey’s telephone number and some talking points when you
call his office. Please be polite
and encouraging.

I am calling to ask Dr. Dorsey to please stop the
use of pigs in the school’s emergency medicine residency program before it
begins.

Since Southern Illinois exclusively employed nonanimal methods until this year, there is no justification for this new animal use since it is not the most effective training available.

Eighty-five percent of surveyed emergency medicine residency programs in the United States – including Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, and four major training programs in Illinois – do not use animals.